If this post comes across as offensive, arrogant or downright nasty to anyone, I apologise in advance; I literally woke up on the wrong side of bed and pulled a shoulder, so I’m cranky; plus this matter has been on my mind for several months now.

The name started as a joke (as did Suzee in the City) but I figured that I should start a travel blog since I travel every time I make enough money to get me out of Cairo – which is necessary therapy, trust me.

A funny thing happened outside the AUC on Mohamed Mahmoud Street last Thursday. As a group of onlookers, including journalists, photographers, documentary makers and myself, watched Ammar Abo Bakr, Alaa Awad and several other artists diligently work away on a mural of the martyrs of the Port Said massacre – a mural they’ve spent almost two weeks painting – a shuttle bus pulled up at the AUC gate and unloaded a group of foreigners in suits, presumably for a conference inside the AUC campus.

In the midst of the madness of the night of February 2nd, where thousands of protesters ran through the crowded street of Mohamed Mahmoud amidst the insufferable tear gas fumes filling the air and ominous sounds of gunshots echoing in the night, artist Ammar Abo Bakr quietly painted a mural on the wall of the American University in Cairo. Continue reading →

In recent months, activists have used the walls to diligently spread messages denouncing military rule and military trials of thousands of civilians, and calling for another 25 January revolution. At the same time, military loyalists have just as attentively erased these graffiti pieces, leaving their own pro-army and nationalist messages.

This war, completely unimaginable during Mubarak’s time, has come to a head on one wall: Ganzeer’s famous mural of the tank versus bike.

This massive mural under the 6th of October Bridge in Zamalek is considered by many to be the most iconic piece of graffiti in post-revolution Cairo. A collaborative work by graffiti artist Ganzeer and his friends, and a blatant criticism of the Egyptian military, the mural has remained surprisingly untouched since May 2011.

But in early January 2012, unknown artists painted new additions (photo courtesy of @Mosaaberizing) onto the imposing mural, adding a row of protesters carrying ‘V for Vendetta’ masks, a pool of blood under the tank and bodies collapsing under its wheels — a clear reference to the 9 October Maspiro attacks, when Coptic protesters were run over by military APCs, leaving dozens dead.

Interestingly enough, these additions incited a reaction of their own: A group of pro-SCAF civilians called Badr Team 1 vandalized the mural 10 days later, erasing everything they found offensive to the Egyptian army. This meant erasing everything, except for the tank, that is.

In an amateur video allegedly captured on 20 January, Badr Team 1 (who also called themselves the Badr Battalion) accused graffiti artists of being foreign agents and traitors to Egypt. The team called on all honorable Egyptian youth to erase graffiti, as it was “a method for agents and traitors to spread their violent ideologies against the police, the army and Egyptian traditions.”

This rhetoric is all too familiar to Egyptians who, for the past year, have had to listen to SCAF members broadcasting such accusations in the media.

Graffiti has spread like wildfire throughout Cairo in the past 12 months, and is used by young Egyptian activists to commemorate the victims of the uprising, and to raise awareness of political injustices and crimes committed by the Egyptian military. In the face of the mainstream media’s campaign to tarnish protesters as criminals and cover up military crimes, many activists have turned to graffiti as an alternative means of reaching the average Egyptian on the streets.

And while this shaky amateur video produced by these antagonists of street art can easily be disregarded as a minor incident, the level of ignorance, paranoia and aggression propagated by the video is worrying.

Its incitement of attacks on graffiti artists, though, is sadly a natural consequence of the past months of hostility bred against all forms of criticism of the Egyptian military.

The irony that the dumbasses of Badr Team have made graffiti to denounce graffiti is clearly lost on them. They say members of the April 6 Youth Movement were responsible for the mural, even though an easy internet search would have led them straight to Ganzeer.

The video also shows the stencils of several martyrs’ faces, which were made after the revolution to commemorate those who died during the January 25 revolution. The stencils once carried their names and the words “Glory to God.” Now, the names are erased, and the words read “Glory to Egypt” instead, showing Badr Team’s fanatical nationalism. It seems Egypt is superior to God in their demented heads.

“These drawings contain Masonic and anarchist codes and symbols,” Badr Team’s statement reads. Badr Team circles those “Masonic” symbols drawn by the graffiti artists, including a sad and fat panda, a bird, a child clasping his hands in prayer and the words “Power to the People.”

They are all clear symbols inciting violence, especially the panda.

The V for Vendetta masks — often used by revolutionary artists, most likely as symbols of defying totalitarianism — are particularly bothersome for army loyalists, including the Muslim Brotherhood. It is worth noting here that a recent article in the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party newspaper warned of anarchists wearing the ‘B for Bendetta’ masks, a spelling mistake that has since been ruthlessly lampooned all over the Egyptian Twitter-sphere.

At any rate, the graffiti community has been quick to respond to attacks by army loyalists, especially the erasure of SCAF’s victims from the famous tank mural. Badr Team 1 had whitewashed all references to SCAF’s atrocities, leaving the solitary tank standing in all its glory with any reference to the Maspiro massacre, the martyrs and the revolutionary protesters wiped out. The words ‘The Army and the Police and the People Are One Hand’ was ironically scrawled nearby.

The green monster is courtesy of the artist Mohamed Khaled

Striking back at Badr Team 1’s pro-SCAF erasure of the mural, a giant green monster of a military policeman chewing on the body of a protester next to stencils of Mona Lisa, Lenin, military leader Hussein Tantawi and other faces were sketched next to the tank. The new additions have been made by a group calling themselves the Mona Lisa Battalion, a tongue-in-cheek hat-tip to the Badr Battalion. The new graffiti faces are whimsical, funny and blatantly political; yet it’s quite possible that the Badr Battalion will not understand that this art is directed at them, that this whole joke is on them.

When asked to comment on the Badr Team video, the original mural’s creator, Ganzeer, said that he was initially happy to have this visual dialogue happening in reaction to the tank mural.

“But when I saw the YouTube video by the ‘Badr Battalion’, I felt a certain kind of sadness that this act was done by a group obviously soaked in ignorance and blind nationalism,” he wrote to me.

“Clearly they’ve been brainwashed by our horrible school textbooks and official media, so brainwashed to the point of stating that ‘The Army, police and people are one hand’.”

Ganzeer couldn’t resist adding the jab, “It’s also obvious that these kids have no sense of aesthetic whatsoever.”

This op-ed has been published in Egypt Independent. You can also read it here.

If you Google search Cairo Street Art, Ganzeer’s name is your top result. Countless interviews and features on the artist follow. As arguably the most recognized name on Cairo’s art scene today, it’s no surprise that Ganzeer is the most sought-after interview subject and reference on graffiti in Cairo.

This amazing mural of the injured protesters of November 19 is on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, on the wall of the AUC Main Campus, which saw the heaviest battle between protesters and police soldiers ten days ago

Once again, graffiti has returned to the streets of Tahrir and the Mogama’ building as Egyptian demonstrators flooded back to the Square on November 19th. The street art covers layers of previous graffiti on the walls of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, only this time the tone is more sombre, calling for the freedom of jailed activists, commemorating those who lost their eyes or died during the November 19 protests, and denouncing the regime for the atrocities and injustice it is responsible for.

Graffiti is not meant to be permanent; but it is meant to produce a reaction, even if that reaction means removing it because it’s offensive, or an eyesore. However, when you’re a Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo that teaches art, it’s a little strange that you remove the post-jan25 graffiti your students and friends have made on your walls, no?

Watching an artist sketch or witnessing the process of his creativity is as fascinating as watching ballet dancers in rehearsals – you get to see the real people, the real bones without the makeup and forced costumes, you observe the work in process while it’s still rough, before it’s refined and perfected into a product.

Eva Mena, aka Den, is a 33-year-old graffiti artist from Bilbao, Northern Spain, who came to Egypt this week to take part in the Fourth Mediterranean Hip Hop Festival (also called Meeting of Mediterranean Urban Culture for some reason), sponsored by the Spanish Embassy in Cairo and held in Townhouse Gallery and the Cairo Opera House.

Clearly, this isn’t a post about graffiti but I’ve seen these cool glasses on so many of my intellectual/funky artist/Leftist/Middle-Class-With-Identity-Issues friends and longed for a pair of my own. Souria Mustafa is a small and seriously dusty optical shop just before El Horreya Bar in Downtown Cairo.

Check out this interesting blogspot by Pascal Zoghbi on the blog 29letters.wordpress about how a collaborative graffiti project by Ganzeer and Lebanese graffiti artist Ali was quickly and thoroughly removed by Lebanese police in Beirut. One stencil condemned Lebanese police’s corruption, while the other called for Arab unity.